As you may have already read, stories
relating to development and the changing face of Koh Chang appear fairly
regularly in the English language press. However, since we've been on
the island there have been a couple of interesting stories in the Thai
papers that never made it into Thailand's English language papers . . .
perhaps they weren't considered newsworthy enough, perhaps they weren't
considered suitable reading fodder for tourists, who knows?
Anyway, a quick summary.
Let's start with a light hearted story from May 2004. Koh Chang
Resort, a relatively new package tour type resort at the north end of Klong
Prao beach put forward a request to become the island's (and the country's)
first nudist resort. The thinking behind this is that the govt. want
Koh Chang to become a 'must visit ' location for high spending foreigners
and, as we all know, foreign tourists like nothing better than getting their
kit off and displaying their dangly bits for all to see, so why not have a
resort catering to this wierd, western behaviour? In the plan all the
staff would also be naked, this of course roused fears that innocent young
Thai staff would be forced to wait on lobster-red farangs wearing nothing
more than their birthday suit and patent 'Land of Smiles' nervous smile.
Fears were allayed however, by the resort owner who explained that foreign
staff would be recruited to work at the hotel in any positions that required
the showing of an excessive amount of skin. Therefore, wealthy Thai
males could be rest assured of getting an eyeful of the female farang form
without having to head to the beaches of Europe every summer.
And now for something completely
different.
In late-November 2003, the front page
stories in a couple of the Thai tabloid papers were related to the
construction of the biggest, poshest resort on the island - Koh Chang Grand
Lagoona.
In mid-November local planning
officials, accompanied by police and various officials from Bangkok paid a
visit to the hotel. There were several key reasons behind this visit.
Little things such as no plans ever having been submitted, doubts about the
authenticity of land documents, the digging up of an inshore coral reef to
make way for a large ship to be moored inland, etc. The owner of the
resort is a Thai billionaire and this resort is his attempt at creating the
largest, most luxurious resort that he can. Obviously you don't want a
resort like this to be built alongside common or garden resorts, it needs
it's own beach and preferably it's own chunk of island. So he bought
up agricultural land from locals, then paid them around 3,000 baht/day to
work for him. (Bear in mind the average Thai labourer gets no more than 300
baht/day).
The resort itself is very nice in
places, the gardens, spotless sandy beach and old rice barges which have
been converted into suites in particular. And then there are the
monstrosities such as the ship that was bought ashore to be used as a moored
floating hotel. As mentioned earlier, newspapers initially reported that
planning permission hadn't been obtained . . . but almost as soon as the
stories appeared in the papers documents approving the plans and dated a day
before the authorities raid were being waved by the owner. (I bet they cost
a bob or two.) Credit to the reporters for not rolling over and giving
up on the story, the next item that was unearthed is the best yet. So
the hotel has planning permission, even for the 'ship hotel'. A closer
look revealed that the 'ship hotel' was classified as a building, despite
the fact that it was still afloat. A more than willing source from
whatever govt. department is in charge of boats helpfully noted that the
ship was bought cheaply from Cambodia, it was cheap because it didn't have a
seaworthiness certificate of any kind and therefore couldn't be used to
accommodate passengers/guests at all.
Nothing was ever resolved, the rich guy
said he'd take every official on the island to court - presumably for not
obeying his every whim, P.M. Thaksin said that no-one, no matter how rich or
influential they were would be allowed to get away scot-free. So it
all died down, no serious face was lost as people have short memories and
it'll be highly unlikely that any charges, let alone serious ones are ever
made to stick.
I asked our friend in the local
planning dept. if we could classify the bungalows that we were planning to
build as boats by adding a couple of lifebelts to the outside and therefore
bypass any planning regulations. He just shook his head. The
poor guy is known for being one of the very few planning officials who won't
take bribes and does everything above board. This next story concerned
him.
We first met Yuth when we wanted plans
drawn up for our bungalows, getting someone in the local planning dept to
draw up plans for you is the best way to get them approved quickly and
without the need to pay any 'fees' to smooth the approval process. He turned
out to be a nice guy with a lot of good ideas and who hated the usual dull,
concrete boxes which are passed of as bungalows by many resorts. He
helped get our plans drawn up and we kept in touch with him as he often
passed by our house.
In April 2004, there was a story in
'Thai Rath' newspaper about a couple of officials who were to be transferred
from Koh Chang because there had been complaints about them from resort
owners. He was one of the people named. As everyone on the
island knew he never accepted any 'under the table money' readers on Koh
Chang assumed, correctly that this was the reason he was named as someone to
be transferred. His departure would make things easier for the resort
operators and the guys who benefit form kickbacks. We spoke to him to ask if
it was true. It turns out that the owner of a resort on White Sand
Beach had
complained to his boss that Yuth kept stopping construction and the building
that was being built bore no resemblance to the one in the plans. This
was a big project so the owner obviously wanted things to go ahead smoothly,
and by allowing this the big boss of the planning office stood to
benefit considerably. This lead to Yuth being out on the transfer
list, however once the story appeared in the papers the transfer was put on
hold but it finally went though in mid-June, when he was sent into exile at
a planning office in a remote part of Chantaburi province, a place where
there is no applecart to upset.
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